Monthly Archives: October 2017

October 25, 2017

Source: NAELA News

The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long Term Care has put together a list of resources relating to emergency preparedness and the vulnerable adult population. The list includes links to regulations, checklists, and other materials that can help caregivers and family members prepare for natural and man-made disasters.

October 25, 2017

Source: NAELA News

The Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Innovation (CMMI) is looking to revamp its priorities for the new administration and has issued an informal Request for Information seeking your input. They intend to chart “a new direction to promote patient-centered care and test market-driven reforms that empower beneficiaries as consumers, provide price transparency, increase choices and competition to drive quality, reduce costs, and improve outcomes. The Innovation Center welcomes stakeholder input on the ideas on additional ideas and concepts, and on the future direction of the Innovation Center. Continue reading →

October 19, 2017

Source: Naela News

Sallie Cutler, left, and her mother, Alyce Cheatham, attended a 2012 luncheon for Oregon Health and Science University’s Center for Ethics in Health Care, which conducts research regarding Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment. Cheatham, a longtime advocate of the program, relied on instructions in her POLST form after a severe stroke in May. She died a week later at age 96. (Courtesy of Erin Grace Photography)

Just four hours earlier, Sallie Cutler had been sharing Mother’s Day lunch with her mom, Alyce Cheatham. Continue reading →

October 19, 2017

Source: Naela News

Teenagers and young adults with severe autism are spending weeks or even months in emergency rooms and acute-care hospitals, sometimes sedated, restrained or confined to mesh-tented beds, a Kaiser Health News investigation shows.

These young people — who may shout for hours, bang their heads on walls or lash out violently at home — are taken to the hospital after community social services and programs fall short and families call 911 for help, according to more than two dozen interviews with parents, advocates and physicians in states from Maine to California. Continue reading →

October 19, 2017

Source: Naela News

In the wake of nursing home deaths cause by Hurricane Irma, House Democrats are asking the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to let nursing home residents take facilities to court over allegations such as abuse.

Over the summer, CMS announced it intended to change the rule under President Obama that banned nursing homes accepting Medicare or Medicaid funds from requiring a third party to settle disputes. Continue reading →

October 19, 2017

Source: Naela News

But the agency was quick to point out the decision relates to how the rule became moot in 2015, not because it is cutting back on protections for LGBT individuals. A CMS spokesperson told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News the agency is pulling the rule because the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges required all states to license and recognize same-sex marriage.

“The 2015 decision addressed the concerns that CMS had sought to address with the proposed rule,” the spokesperson said.

October 19, 2017

Source: Naela News

For years, Rudy North woke up at 9 a.m. and read the Las Vegas Review-Journal while eating a piece of toast. Then he read a novel—he liked James Patterson and Clive Cussler—or, if he was feeling more ambitious, Freud. On scraps of paper and legal notepads, he jotted down thoughts sparked by his reading. “Deep below the rational part of our brain is an underground ocean where strange things swim,” he wrote on one notepad. On another, “Life: the longer it cooks, the better it tastes.”

October 19, 2017

Source: Naela News

Alzheimer’s disease causes atrophy of brain tissue. The discovery that lymph vessels near the brain’s surface help remove waste suggests glitches in the lymph system might be involved in Alzheimer’s and a variety of other brain diseases. Continue reading →

October 19, 2017

Source: Naela News

Tax reform proposals of past years from both political parties have targeted the break people get for 401(k)s because it is a gigantic source of untaxed money – perhaps more than $580 billion over five years, according to a 2016 Joint Committee on Taxation estimate.

The Tax Policy Center suggests that Congress needs to find $2.4 trillion over 10 years to avoid increasing the deficit with the current tax reform proposal. So the temptation to end the 401(k) tax break could be intense. Currently, 401(k) contributions come from pre-tax earnings, and the government waits until you take the money out in retirement to tax it and the returns it has earned.